Spirits of the Dead (segment "Toby Dammit")

Toby Dammi, a former Shakespearean actor, and a drug-addict and an alcoholic at present, is in Rome. He’s going to be the main character of the first Catholic western film. After helping a young girl who has lost the ball she was playing with, Dammit starts having visions of the girl and her ball. After being given a Ferrari by the film producer Dammit drives his new car very fast. Some workers try to stop Dammit close to a fallen bridge across a ravine, but he speeds ahead. When his car reaches the other side, Dammit's head has been cut off by a cable running across the ravine. The young girl appears again, she picks Toby Dammit’s head up, as if it were a ball …

Reviews

Mario Verdone

Toby Dammit’s story is quite weak. It is characterized by memories, nostalgia, Fellini’s beloved mirages, unreal actresses, and a weak Polidor. This film is focused on technique and how to go beyond them. Otto e mezzo’s fogs and Giulietta’s colours are replaced by lights problems. Rotunno solves them all: projectors, light bulbs, car headlights. Techniques, set decoration and lighting prevail. There is a formal showing-off and a technical virtuosity that are sometimes an end in themselves.

“Bianco e Nero”, a. XXIX, n. 11-12, November-December1968

Edoardo Bruno

Fellini views reality through his characters’ eyes: he is alternatively a priest, a Catholic writer, a cruel reporter (when he mocks Totò), a blind comedian with a huge blond and eccentric actress. Fellini-Poe’s Rome welcomes all these elements as if they were surrounded by smoke or taken from a nightmare (…).